Experts at Belfast's Ulster Museum have had their efforts in the £17 million overhaul of the centre (above) rewarded by this year's Art Fund Prize

From the gleaming new £60 million Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to the 54-acre Blists Hill Victorian Town in Shropshire and the tiny Leach Pottery in St Ives, the Art Fund Prize has announced a typically disparate variety of competitors on the longlist for the 2010 edition of the £100,000 award.

Eleven venues have been chosen from a "simply outstanding" set of nominations to succeed the Wedgewood Museum in Stoke-on-Trent, expanded from the usual ten due to the "high quality and volume" of applications received.

Coventry's impressive Herbert Art Gallery and Museum and The Ulster Museum in Belfast have been rewarded following major refurbishments, taking on projects including The Natural History Museum's Darwin Centre, Hampton Court Palace's Henry VIII show and The National Army Museum's decade-spanning Conflicts of Interests exhibition.

Eastbourne's new £8.6 million Towner Art Gallery is in the running for the flagship Prize less than a year after opening.

"This really is the icing on the cake at the end of an incredible first year for Towner," said Eastbourne Borough Council Cabinet Member for Tourism Susan Morris, who called the nomination "a wonderful privilege" for the fledgling centre.

"The prize is awarded to a museum or gallery that demonstrates originality, imagination and excellence, and we are thrilled that the judges have recognised all of these qualities in Towner."